Day 59: Still Thinning

The Plateau Buster has worked yet again, getting me slightly below the plateau I was stuck upon (with diet interruption) for eight days running. I've lost about four pounds since the start of the latest use of the Plateau Buster.

It's only been relatively recently that I've faced a hurdle that normal dieters normally face at the outset. Even though I'm entitled to a ration of 1,500 calories/day on the self-imposed scale I've been using, I'm hungrier than I was when fatter and eating less. Whatever the cue (I believe it's visual,) I've found that being thinner than "normal" makes a diet more intractable.

There are two options available to get through this added hurdle. One is to start off a diet at the normal-overweight level for you, and see the gnawing hunger as part of the initial shift-to-diet burden. The other, the option I chose, is to fatten up before commencing a diet, and then put off the gnawing experience until long after being habituated to calorie reduction. This option inculcates new habits to fall back on. With it, passivity is your aid. With the former option, fortitude is.

I don't know which one is best. The former option gets the bulk of the pain and discomfort out of the way at the outset. The latter option splits the discomfort in two. To be honest, part of me wishes that I had gone with the former option, even though doing so would have missed the experience of going abruptly from a huge appetite to a small one. In the final analysis, it's a value judgment, as is the decision to stay the course when things start to get tough. My own value judgments incline me towards toughing it through if I can, and deciding that I'm not committed (or ready) enough if I can't. There's nothing wrong, after all, with dress rehersals, pilot plants and practice runs - all three range between useful and vital.

I'm about five to ten pounds below my normal weight. If you're interested, my unconscious plays a trick on me when I weigh myself: I mis-remember the 220 level on my scale as 230. Chalk it up to diet anxiety.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 219 pounds.